Late Gallifreyan

Late Gallifreyan
Type	Agglutinative-fusional
Alignment	Nominative-accusative
Head direction	Final
Tonal	Yes
Declensions	Yes
Conjugations	Yes
Genders	None
Nouns decline according to...
Case	Number
Definiteness	Gender
Verbs conjugate according to...
Voice	Mood
Person	Number
Tense	Aspect
Meta-information
Statistics Nouns 20% Verbs 47% Adjectives 0% Syntax % Words 4300 of 4300
Creator	Toadino3

Late Gallifreyan is a language spoken by the Gallifreyans, including the Time Lords, on Gallifrey, and in particular in the Capitol.

Classification and Dialects

Late Gallifreyan belongs to the family of the Gallifreyan languages spoken across Galifrey, and ultimately derived from Old High Gallifreyan. Specifically, it is one of the two languages born from Classical Gallifreyan (itself derived from Old High Gallifreyan through Middle Gallifreyan), the other being Arcadic, spoken as a vernacular in Arcadia.

Late Gallifreyan is mainly spoken as a vernacular in the Capitol on Gallifrey in the last period of dwelling of the Time Lords on the planet until the Battle with the Daleks, with Classical Gallifreyan serving mainly as a literary and formal language, only rarely spoken colloquially and mostly by high-rank Time Lords.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Epiglottal	Glottal
Nasal
Plosive	p pʲ pˠ pʰ		t tʲ tˠ tʰ					k kʲ kˠ kʰ	q qʰ
Fricative		f	θ					x	ʁ	ʕ
Affricate
Approximant							j ɥ	w
Trill
Flap or tap
Lateral fric.				ɬ
Lateral app.				l				ɫ
Lateral flap

1. When at the start of a stressed syllable, all plain stops become the nasals /m/, /n/, /ŋ/ and /ɴ/, so a word like /ìpʌ̤wi/ Parliament is pronounced [ì'mʌ̤wi].
2. /x/ has, particularly in lower-class speech, a /ç/ allophone before /i/ and /y/.
3. Contrary to Classical Gallifreyan, consonants cannot be geminated and have no voiceless/voiced distinction.
4. /ɬ/ and /ɫ/ are in free variation with /ɮ/ and /ʟ/ respectively.
5. The pharyngeal /ʕ/ is often elided, especially in unstressed syllables.

Vowels

	Front	Near-front	Central	Near-back	Back
High	i y				(ɯ:) (u:)
Near-high
High-mid
Mid	e ø		ə		ʌ o
Low-mid
Near-low
Low			a		ɒ

1. All vowels can be long or short; sometimes, long schwas are shortened.
2. /ɯ/ and /u/ do not have a short variant.
3. Late Gallifreyan marks stress by nasalizing the vowel; the stressed syllable is usually the penultimate.
4. Before /q/ and /r/, mid vowels become mid-low.
5. Back mid vowels have an ample range of realizations, spanning from a high quality to low-mid.
6. All vowels can have three modalities: modal, breathy and creaky.

Diphthongs

As opposed to Classical Gallifreyan, that only exhibited diphthongs as allophones of monophthongal vowels, Late Gallifreyan distinguishes as much as 17 "true" diphthongs: ɪɛ, ai, aɛ, ɜa, aɜ, ay, ɒa, aɒ, ɜɛ, ɒœ, ʊʌ, ɘʌ, ʊɔ, aɔ, ɜʌ, ɒɔ. Just like vowels, diphthongs can act as a component of a word root on their own right.

Just like the monophthongs, the diphthongs distinguish three modalities, two lengths and three tones.

Beside the true diphthongs, we can identify "impure diphthongs", made from a sequence of an approximant and a monophthong. Among these, only jɪ and ɥʏ are noteworthy, but in addition to being extremely rare, they are often simply pronounced as /ji/ and /jy/. /jɜ/ and /wʊ/ are more common in native vocabulary, but have largely been displaced by /jə/ and /wu/.

Contrary to monophthongs, which are fairly stable in this stage of the language, diphthongs exhibit considerable differences between speakers, especially in the pronunciation of mid-high elements, of quasi-high elements and the precise pronunciation of specific diphthongs. We can identify three groups of speakers, the first prevailingly older speakers, the second comprising a sizeable portion of younger speakers, and the third making a minority of all age groups:

• Group A keeps the original pronunciation of the diphthongs: ɪɛ, ai, aɛ, ɜa, aɜ, ay, ɒa, aɒ, ɜɛ, ɒœ, ʊʌ, ɘʌ, ʊɔ, aɔ, ɜʌ, ɒɔ.
• Group B only has mid elements, has no "unrounded-to-rounded" monophthongs and doesn't use quasi-high vowels, so that the diphthongs are je, ai, ae, ea, aə, ay, ɒ:, a:, əe, ɒœ, wʌ, əʌ, wɔ, aɔ, əʌ, ɒɔ, so that the number of true diphthongs is actually 11; for some of these even aə is simplified to /a:/.
• Group C has the same 17 diphthongs as group C but turns quasi-high vowels to high, so that ɪɛ ʊʌ ʊɔ become iɛ uʌ uɔ (still staying distinct from impure diphthongs).

A minority of speakers from group B, mostly low-class, simplify diphthongs so much further that only three are present, and the series looks like this: je, ai, ai, ja, a:, ai, ɒ:, a:, ə, oy/oi, wʌ, ə, wɔ, au, ə, ɒ:.

The distinction between clusters of vowels and diphthongs are often blurry, especially for speakers of group B and C, so that the diphthong /ai/ may merge with the sequence /a.i/.

What's even more notable is how diphthongs usually only appear in one tone, and it almost never is the mid tone: specifically, /aɜ aɒ/ have a high tone, while all the others have a low tone.

This table illustrates how diphthongs evolved:

Classical vowel	Rising tone	Falling tone
i	ɪɛ	jɪ
ɨ	ai	ja
e	aɛ	ja
ə	ɜa	aɜ
y	ʏœ>ɥœ	ɥʏ
ʉ	ay	ɥa
ø	ay	ɥa
ɵ	ɒa	aɒ
ɛ	ɜɛ	jɜ>jə
æ	ɜa	aɜ
œ	ɒœ	ɥɒ
ɶ	ɒ:	ɒ:
ɐ	a:	a:
ɞ	ɒa	ɒa aɒ
ɯ	ʊʌ	wʊ
ɤ	ɥɒ	wa
u	ʊɔ	wʊ
o	aɔ	wa
ʌ	ɜʌ	wə
ɑ	ɒɔ	wɒ
ɔ	ɒɔ	wɒ
ɒ	ɒ:	wɒ

Vowel fusion

When, due to the position on the vowels within a root, two of them come into contact, they may merge into a glide.

In particular, the diphthongs of the series ɪɛ, ai, aɛ, ɜa, aɜ, ay, ɒa, aɒ, ɜɛ, ɒœ, ʊʌ, ʊɔ, aɔ, ɜʌ, ɒɔ arise from the merger of the sequences i+e, a+i, a+e, ə+a, a+ə, a+y, ɒ+a, a+ɒ, ə+e, ɒ+œ u+ʌ, u+o, a+o, ə+ʌ, ɒ+o. Also, in general, any sequence beginning in the high vowels /i, y, u/ creates an impure diphthong beginning in the correspondent semivowel, unless this is preceded by another semivowel.

In addition to that, when two vowels with the same height and frontness touch (hereby including /a/ and /ɒ/), they are usually merged as a lengthened first element.

The matter is further complicated when a true diphthong precedes a monophthong (monophthong-diphthong sequences are usually left intact). As a rule, when the first element of a monophthong has at most different rounding from the monophthong, this first element lengthened is the result. Barring that, the following combinations produce:

• ɪɛ+ɛ=ɛ

ai/aɛ/ay/aɜ/aɔ/aɒ+i=ai

ai/aɛ/ay/aɜ/aɔ/aɒ+y=ay

ai/aɛ/ay/aɜ/aɔ/aɒ+e=aɛ

ai/aɛ/ay/aɜ/aɔ/aɒ+ɔ=aɔ

ai/aɛ/ay/aɜ/aɔ/aɒ+ə=aɜ

ɜɛ/ɜa/ɜʌ+ɛ=ɜɛ

ɜɛ/ɜa/ɜʌ+a=ɜa

ɜɛ/ɜa/ɜʌ+ʌ=ɜʌ

ʏœ+œ=ʏœ

ɒa/ɒœ/ɒɔ+œ=ɒœ

ɒa/ɒœ/ɒɔ+a=ɒa

ɒa/ɒœ/ɒɔ+ɔ=ɒɔ

ʊʌ/ʊɔ+ʌ=ʊʌ

ʊʌ/ʊɔ+ɔ=ʊɔ

Because of this phenomenon, many nouns end up with irregular declensions (albeit predictably).

Nevertheless, some constraints exist on vowel fusion; for example, a creaky vowel and a breathy vowel cannot fuse together. On the other hand, if one of them is fused with a modal-voice vowel, their modality is preserved in the resulting diphthong.

The tone of the diphthongs arising from vowel fusion differs depending on the speaker's group; in particular, speakers from group B and C, and sometimes group A, the tone is always the one inherent to the diphthong regardless of the inherent vowels; on the other hand, the remaining speakers from group A may apply older, more complex rules. However, for most of them, any diphthong arising from vowel fusion preserves the tone of the second element, very simply.

Stress

In late Gallifreyan, the stress of a word normally falls on the antepenult syllable, where a word by definition includes all the suffixes and clitics attached to it. Historically, in Classical Gallifreyan, stress fell on the first syllable, but because most Classical words were bisyllabic and lacked affixes, this came to be reanalysed as antepenult stress.

The stress is nasal, like in Classical Gallifreyan, but stronger and less reliant on intensity.

Consonantal reduction

This phenomenon works similarly to vowel reduction in many languages of the Earth - consonants can be merged and reduced to a less articulated form in unstressed syllables.

In normal speech, three levels are present:

1. In every unstressed syllable, all "neutral" (non-palatal, non-velarized and non-aspirated) plosives are weakened to voiced plosives. Additionally, /q/ is pronounced as a glottal stop.
2. In every unstressed syllable except the last, the neutral plosives further weaken to voiced fricatives, and palatal stops merge into /j/, while velarized stops merge into /w/. This can give rise to double approximants.
3. In every unstressed syllable except the first and the last, the lateral fricative merges with /j/, and the velarized lateral merges with /w/; furthermore, depending on their point of articulation, all fricatives merge with aspirated plosives into approximants, while /l/ is weakened to a tap and the pharyngeal falls away.

Fast speech may implement on all unstressed syllables level three, and further merge all neutral plosives with the respective fricatives.

Level 1 can be used throughout a word, in order to precise what consonant is being pronounced, like in a misunderstanding.

This table sums it up:

	1	2	3	Fast speech
pʲ, tʲ, kʲ	unchanged	j	j	j
pˠ, tˠ, kˠ	unchanged	w	w	w
ɬ	unchanged	unchanged	j	j
ɫ	unchanged	unchanged	w	w
p, t, k	b, d, g	β, ð, ɣ	β, ð, ɣ	β̞, ð̞, ɣ̞
pʰ, f	unchanged	unchanged	β̞	β̞
tʰ, θ	unchanged	unchanged	ð̞	ð̞
kʰ, x	unchanged	unchanged	ɣ̞	ɣ̞
qʰ, ʁ	unchanged	unchanged	h	h
ʕ	unchanged	unchanged	dropped	dropped
l	unchanged	unchanged	ɾ	ɾ
q	ʔ	ʔ	ʔ	ʔ

Phonotactics

Late Gallifreyans, contrary to Classical Gallifreyan, does not allow syllables with consonantal codes; hence, only two types of syllable are allowed, the scheme being (C)V.

Evolution from Classical Gallifreyan

• The Classical system of nine declensions, based on opposition between stops and fricatives, withers away; however, they respectively colour the preceding vowels with creaky and breathy voice respectively, and further changes will make this allophony phonemic; however, vowels that were followed by both throughout the declension of the word usually ended up with modal voice.
• Double consonants, which already could be pronounced as affricates in the Classical standard, eventually developed into fricatives, which definitely discarded the declension system.
• Loss of the allophonical lengthening of high rounded vowels.
• Tendency to slightly round vowels between two labials, with weaker rounding than true rounded vowels.
• Loss of the voiceless/voiced opposition in consonants; because voiced consonants usually triggered allophonic lengthening of the preceding vowel, vowel length became phonemic.
• Merging of /d ð z/ into a single phoneme /ɾ/; this already happened sporadically in the Classical standard.
• Debuccalisation of /s z/ into glottals; later, all glottals (including the glottal stop) were dropped.
• Development of allophones of the remaining consonants /p f t θ ɾ/, expanding on previous allophony: see the table in the Morphology section below for details. Further developments will cause the allophones to split into distinct phonemes.
• Deletion of all consonants in the coda of a syllable, which eliminated the Classical phonotactics based on opposition of closed and open syllables, thereby leaving open syllables only. Because final consonants were thus lost - this made the previous rounding of vowels between labials phonemic, and the weakly rounded vowels soon merged with fully rounded vowels, and cemented the distinction of vowel length and modality. Furthermore, the inflections relying on final consonants such as cases and mood were reduced, and only preserved in the way the vowels were coloured. This also made the voiced pharyngeal phonemic.
• Development of initial mutations: as a rule, vowels between two dentals acquired a clear mutation, while a vowel between two labials acquired a dark mutation. The istances were the voiced pharyngeal was produced word-initially as a vowel-cluster breaker gave rise to the throat mutation.
• Loss of Classical tonal sandhi and simplification of the five-tone system to three (with the rising and high, and falling and low tones merging). This also made the diphthongs phonemic.
• Loss of the initial syllable in many function words, that were subsequently reanalysed as clitics and then suffixes.
• Switching from initial stress to antepenult stress.
• Merging of many vowels: short high, mid-high and mid-low vowels all merged into mid vowels; later, merging of long mid-high and mid-low vowels into mid vowels as well; loss of central high vowels, which merged with their front counterparts; merging of /ɐ ə ɵ/ into a schwa; merging of /æ ɑ/ into a single vowel /a/ and of /ɶ ɞ ɒ/ into /ɒ/. Because many allophones of consonants were conditioned by the surrounding vowels, these mergers made many of the consonants phonemic.

Arcadic accent in Late Gallifreyan

Native speakers of Arcadic learning Late Capitol Gallifreyan tend to have distinct pronunciation features.

• The most prominent is the lack of consonantal reduction, which may give native speakers the feeling they're constantly hyperarticulating.
• Failure to distinguish vowel length properly, barring conscious effort, which can erase many morphological features and even merge different words.
• Pronunciation of all vowels as modal; creaky voice may be realized as a coda glottal stop, while breathy voice as a coda /h/.
• Failure to properly pronounce many consonants: /pʲ pˠ/ may become /b p/, while dentals may merge with velars, so that /tʲ tˠ k kʲ kˠ/ become /tī t t tī t/.
• Breaking of aspirated stops into clusters of consonant+/h/.
• Merger of /θ/ and /x/ as /s/.
• /l ɬ ɫ/ may all merge into /l/.
• /q/ may be pronounced as a glottal stop and /R/ as /h/.
• All mid vowels may be pronounced as mid-low, even by more proficient speakers.

Writing System

Late Gallifreyan, like Classical and Middle Gallifreyan, is written in the Gallifreyan script, and much more often in the cursive form than in the two ancestor languages.

Being Classical Gallifreyan the literary language, the orthography is very conservative and usually based off the Classical orthography; although significant variation exists between speakers, the distinct morphemes are written the way they would be written in Classical Gallifreyan.

Because of the vowel root system underlying Gallifreyan morphology, spelling of the vowels requires knowledge about the etymology of words, while writing of the consonants requires knowledge of the grammar. More detail will be given in the specific sections.

Script

The script is nothing more than the classical Gallifreyan script (as devised by Loren Sherman; see https://www.omniglot.com/conscripts/shermansgallifreyan.htm for more). The correspondences are:

	Bare	One point	Two points	Three points	Four points	One line	Two lines	Three lines
Round arc	<b>		<q>	<D>		<g>	<'>, <h>	<f>
Free circle	<j>	<1> (high tone)	<k>	<l>	<3> (rising tone)	<n>	<p>	<m>
Flat arc	<T>	<:> (rounding)	<t>	<r>		<v>	<w>	<s>
Halved circle	<θ>	<2> (low tone)	<d>	<G>	<4> (falling tone)	<kʷ>	<x>	<X>

	Under line	On line	Pointing upwards	Below line	Pointing downwards
Circle	<a>	<e>	<i>	<o>	<u>

However, since this writing system was originally devised for Middle Gallifreyan, there no longer exists a good correspondence between graphemes and phonemes, especially for consonants. In fact, as much as seven graphemes correspond to no Late Gallifreyan phoneme - they are silent.

Also, notice how the grapheme <kʷ> already fell out of use in Classical Gallifreyan.

Vowels

Because many vowels merged in the evolution to Late Gallifreyan, etymological spelling is very common and may need to be learnt on a word-by-word basis; however, it is not completely detached from the pronunciation, and several cues may come from the words themselves or grammar.

Vowel length is usually not written, and so is modality; their value is inferred from other cues.

This table illustrates the possible spellings of the main vowel phonemes.

	Spelling	Notes
/i/	<i>	In many words, when it appears as lengthened, but becomes /e/ when shortened throughout the word's declension, it is written <j>; this normally happens before a palatal consonant (when possible).
/y/	<i:>	As above, if it shortens to /ø/, it is written <j:>, but this is much rarer; again, a palatal consonant usually follows.
/e/	<j>, <jr>, <e>	The choice is etymological. However, as per above, if it lengthens to /i:/, it is always <j>.
/ø/	<j:>, <j:r>, <e:>	The spellings <j:> and <j:r> are extremely rare; if it lengthens to /y:/, it is always <j:>.
/a/	<er>, <or>, or <h>+any unrounded vowel	The choice is etymological. However, <or> is normally followed by an aspirated or dorsal consonant, while <er> isn't. The third spelling is very rare, and only occurs in a half a dozen words.
/ɒ/	<a:>, <e:r>, <o:r>, <h>+any rounded vowel	The choice is etymological. The last three spellings almost never occur.
/ʌ/	<o>, <w>, <ur>, <u>	The choice is etymological, and the spellings are evenly distributed among words. However, <u> is usually used before velarized consonant, and whenever the vowel lengthens to /ɯ:/ throughout the declension of the word.
/o/	<o:>, <u:>, <w:>, <u:r>	The last two spellings are extremely rare. As per above, is it lengthened to /u:/, the spelling <u:> is the appropriate one.
/ə/	<a>, <ir>, <iwr>, <'>+any vowel	The choice is etymological, but the last two spellings only occur in a handful of words.
/ɯ/	<u>	This vowel only appears as lengthened.
/u/	<u:>	Same as above.

Diphthongs

Diphthongs, and especially impure diphthongs, arising from vowel fusion are written normally as a sequence of two unfused vowels.

The orthography of other diphthongs instead appears as the etymological pronunciation of the vowel; more diphthongs may map to more orthographies. See the section on diphthongs to see how Late diphthongs evolved.

Vowel colouring

No specific graphemes exist to write vowel modality and length. These are necessarily marked on consonants; more details will be provided in the next section.

Consonants

Consonants broadly behave unlike vowels - many consonants are written with the same grapheme. However, since the orthography is still based on Middle Gallifreyan, which had considerably more consonants than Classical Gallifreyan, the matters are much more complex; writing consonants requires, in the end, knowledge of the grammar.

This section will just provide information on grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence; more can be found in the grammar section itself.

Phoneme(s)	Possible graphemes	Notes
Labial stops	<p>, <b>
/f/	<f>, <v>, <m>, <p>
Dental stops	<T>, <t>, <θ>
/θ/	Same as dental stops
Velar stops	Same as dental stops
/x/	Same as dental stops
Laterals	<d>, <D>, <n>, <l>
Uvular stops	Same as dental stops
/R/	Same as dental stops
Approximants and pharyngeal	No specific grapheme	These are usually signalled by neighbouring consonants or by the vowel being a diphthong.

Such a table is necessary inaccurate; dental stops may be written with a labial or velar grapheme sometimes. Mastering Late Gallifreyan orthography necessarily implies knowledge of the grammar and of the different affixes within the words, with their own pronunciation and separate orthography.

Grammar

The most notable features that underlies both Classical and Late Gallifreyan morphology is the presence of a vowel root system, meaning that while vowel signify the lexeme, consonants are inserted between them to express grammatical categories, much like Semitic languages on Earth.

Late Gallifreyan roots more often include three consonants, but many also only have two, especially when directly inherited from Classical Gallifreyan.

Root order

Vowels and consonants within a word occur at fixed position. Although one-vowel roots no longer exist in Late Gallifreyan, they show up like this:

• Two vowels: VCVC
• Three vowels: VCVCV
• Four vowels: VCVVCV
• Five vowels: VCVVCVV
• Six vowels: VVCVVCVV

Rarely, three-vowel roots can be of the form VCVVC; see the section on noun incorporation for more.

Most words, especially when directly inherited from Classical Gallifreyan, break clusters of vowels by insertion of a pharyngeal, so the last three would be more accurately described as VCVʕVCV, VCVʕVCVʕV, VʕVCVʕVCVʕV.

This one rule is often wobbly in actual speech; although it is always correct to insert a pharyngeal between the vowels, in practice many common words, especially verbs with noun incoporation and more recently coined words, have dropped some pharyngeal, most commonly the middle one, altogether, so that the two now adjacent vowels can also undergo vowel fusion when possible. Variants of these words must be learnt on a word-to-word basis.

Initial mutations

Three mutations exist in Late Gallifreyan: clear, dark and throaty.

Clear mutation

This mutation causes the word to gain a /j-/ prefix. Like all mutations, it is only applied if a word begins in a monophthong or a pure diphthong, and unlike the other two, it is only applied to nouns.

It is normally applied in the following cases:

• Non-present nouns after a verb in the indicative;
• Non-present nouns after another noun in the genitive or the instrumental;
• Nouns following another noun with a possessive suffix;
• Nouns following specific prepositions or words with specific derivational affixes; see the dedicated sections for more.

The restrictions about the tense of the word receiving the mutation being past or future is a general rule; minorities of speakers may apply the mutation to all nouns after an indicative but not to present nouns after a possessive suffix.

Dark mutation

This mutation causes the word to gain a /w-/ prefix to a word beginning in a vowel or pure diphthong. It can also be applied to a word beginning in /j/, wherein the /j/ is turned into /ɥ/.

It is applied to:

• Present-tense words after a verb in the objective;
• Present-tense words after a noun in the accusative or the ablative;
• Words after a verb with an object or subject+object suffix;
• Nouns following specific prepositions; see the dedicated section for more.

Like for the clear mutation, the rules about the tense of words are not applied consistently.

Throaty mutation

This mutation appends a pharyngeal to the start of a word beginning in a vowel or pure diphthong. It is applied in two cases:

• Specific prepositions and derivational affixes; see the dedicated sections for more;
• After a verb in the subjunctive with relative meaning.

This mutation is unstable; some speakers may apply it only after two-vowel verbs, and since it disappears in fast speech because of consonantal reduction, some speakers disregard it entirely in all cases.

Conflicting mutations

When a word possesses more morphemes that trigger different mutations, the last morpheme generally takes precedence. In particular:

• For the speakers for whom numerals trigger a clear mutation, any noun with one will trigger it;
• Nouns in any case with a possessive suffix trigger the clear mutation;
• Pronouns in oblique cases, suffixed to a word, always have their mutation take precedence;

and so on; in general, the mutation a word receives comes from the last affix of the preceding word that causes a mutation the word is apt to receive.

Nouns

Late Gallifreyan nouns normally inflect according to tense, space and case.

• The tenses are three: present (the default form of the noun), past (signifying "something that was X", with X being a past state of the designed entity) and future (signifying "something that will be X", with X being a future state of the designed entity). Contrary to Classical Gallifreyan, no aorist tense exists, and it is substituted by the present.
• The spaces are two, earthly (signifying X is in contact with the ground of any planet or star) and celestial (when X is not connected to the ground).
• The Classical Gallifreyan 13-case system is simplified to six: accusative (indicating the direct object and rarely the indirect object, which is usually otherwise expressed through prepositions); genitive (indicating the possessor, but rarely a cause when coupled with a verb in flowery language); instrumental (indicating both the instrument and the physical location); nominative (indicating the subject), vocative (acting as a true vocative when standing alone, and meaning "with" like a comitative when within a sentence) and ablative (signifying the source).

Nouns in dictionaries and examples are usually shown in the past earthly genitive form, as it makes it possible to completely determine a noun’s declension on its own.

Time-space marking

Time and space are marked by a single inflectional archiphonemic infix between the first two vowels of the root. As a rule, the present is marked by labials, the past is marked by a coronal, and the future by liquids (a system inherited from Classical Gallifreyan), while celestial forms are marked by fricativization (derived from Classical geminates).

	Earthly	Celestial
Present	/P/	/f/
Past	/T’/	/Θ/
Future	/L/	/L/

As shown, the future has no space difference. Additionally, beside infixing marking, this tense also triggers lengthening of the preceding vowel.

All upper case letters represent variable phonemes, whose surfacing form depends on the surrounding vowels and etymology; the rules for choosing the specific consonant can be very complex, and also sometimes unpredictable.

As a guideline, the infixes can be said to be:

• aspiration-conditioned, i.e. when following a historical back non-high vowel (Classical /ɤ o ʌ ɔ ɑ ɒ/). These vowels surface in Late Gallifreyan as /ʌ o a ɒ/. The first two can be recognized as aspiration-conditioning if they are not raised to a high vowel when undergoing lengthening throughout the inflection of the word; on the other hand, the status of the last two can only be ascertained by looking at the root's etymology, which can only be known for certain by looking at the word's spelling. As a rule, very few instances of /ɒ/ are aspiration-conditioning, while more of /a/ are, especially when derived by a previous Middle Gallifreyan abstract noun marker (and thus abounding in abstract nouns), even though this latter regularity is usually useless in determining the time-space morpheme.
• velar-conditioned, i.e. when following a historical back high vowel (Classical /ɯ u/). These vowels always surface in Late Gallifreyan as /ʌ o/, and can be recognized as velar-conditioning if an inflected form of the word (normally the future when determining the time-space morpheme) wherein they are lengthened raises them to high vowels.
• when palatal-conditioned, i.e. when following a historical high front vowel (Classical /i/ and /y/). These vowels surface in Late Gallifreyan as /e ø/, and can be recognized as palatal-conditioning with the exact same criterion as in velar-conditioning.
• unconditioned in all other cases;

• front-conditioned, i.e. when followed by a historical front vowel (Classical /i y e ø ɛ œ a ɶ/). These surface in Late Gallifreyan as /i y e ø a ɒ/. While /e ø/ are always unquestionably front-conditioning, /i y/ only are if they appear as lengthened and inflection causes them to be shortened to mid vowels. /a/ is often front-conditioning (and it depends on etymology), while /ɒ/ rarely is.
• central-conditioned, i.e. when followed by a historical central vowel (Classical /ɨ ʉ ə ɵ ɐ ɞ/). These surface in Late Gallifreyan as /i y ə ɒ/; /i y/ are not central-conditioning only if they can be determined to be front-conditioning; the latter two, on the other hand, /ə ɒ/ are respectively always and almost always central-conditioning.
• back-conditioned, i.e. when followed by a historical back vowel (Classical /ɯ u ɤ o ʌ ɔ ɑ ɒ/. These surface in Late Gallifreyan as /ʌ ɔ a ɒ/; while /ʌ ɔ/ are exclusively back-conditioning, /a/ is less often so (depending on etymology), and /ɒ/ almost never is.

The variation of the infixes can be summed up in a table like this:

		P	T'	Θ	L
Front	Aspiration	pʰ	tʰ
	Velar	pˠ	tˠ
	Palatal	pʲ	tʲ
	Unconditioned/unspecified	p	t	θ	ɬ
Central	Aspiration	/same as front from here to bottom/	kʰ
	Velar		w
	Palatal		j
	Unconditioned/unspecified		k	x	l
Back	Aspiration		qʰ
	Velar		kˠ
	Palatal		kʲ
	Unconditioned/unspecified		q	ʁ	ɫ

Orthography of time-space marking

The consonant chosen to write the infix is normally unequivocable, but can change depending on the modality of the accompaining vowel.

The three tenses of the earthly nouns write the infix as <p>, <T> and <d> respectively; if the preceding vowel is breathy, these change to <f>, <θ> and <sD>.

Those of spatial nouns instead double the consonant, writing <ff>, <θθ> and <ll> for modal and breathy voice, and <pp>, <TT>, <dd> for creaky voice.

Case marking

Case is marked by tweaking the root vowel, and in the case of three-vowel roots, by insertion of an archiphonemic infix; also, all nouns follow a different declension pattern depending on whether the noun in declined in the present or in the past/future, and in particular, the accusative is merged into the genitive, as well as the ablative into the instrumental (so that only the present tense preserves a full declension, while the other tenses show a reduced four-case declension).

Specifically:

• The (present) accusative causes the vowel to round.
• The genitive is identical to the bare form of the root.
• The instrumental causes the vowel to lengthen.
• The nominative adds creaky voice to the vowel.
• The vocative adds breathy voice to the vowel.
• The (present) ablative causes the vowel to round, and to lengthen.

As can be observed, the main change from present to past/future lies in the lack of rounding in the vowels associated to the cases.

A few nouns may have as a root vowel an already long vowel, arisen from contraction of a diphthong; in this case the length is mantained throughout the declension, so that the genitive merges with the instrumental and the accusative merges with the ablative, reducing the declension to 4 cases.

Much more common is the case of a vowel root being rounded; in this case the rounding is mantained throughout the declension too, meaning the accusative merges with the genitive and theinstrumental with the ablative; if both length and rounding occur, the declension is basically simplified to a 3-case system of nominative, oblique and vocative.

On the other hand, most speakers no longer distinguish modality for the inflected root vowel; those who do, mostly older speakers, merged at least nominative and vocative with the genitive, keeping the original modality throughout the declension; those nouns could have anything from a 4-case system to all cases being identical.

As for the orthography, the cases are respectively marked by adding after the vowel <p>, <t>, <d>, <k>, <X> and <b>.

The epenthetic archiphoneme for three vowel roots and above is /θ/ for the vocative and /T/ for all cases but the nominative, which usually does not display epenthesis.

Possessive marking

Possession is usually expressed by shortened pronouns from Classical Gallifreyan behaving as affixes, much like in verbs. The fundamental three persons are distinguished, plus a rare impersonal form (to the point it is not included here), and tense (unlike verbs).

	1	2	3
Present	-pa, <paT>	-pi, <peT>	-pʊʌ̀, <pu4T>
Past	-ta, <TaT>	-ti, <TeT>	-qʊʌ̀, <Tu4T>
Future	-ɬa, <daT>	-ɬi, <deT>	-ɫʊʌ̀, <du4T>

The possessor can be implied to be spatial in the non-future forms by changing /p/ to /f/, /t/ to /θ/ and /q/ to /ʁ/.

When these are followed by a vowel (including from a successive numeral or word, in which case it phonologically behaves as it belonged to it syllable-wise; words with initial mutations and prefixes don't count) these suffixes can optionally take a short form by elision, with the same orthography, as follows:

	1	2	3
Present	-p	-pʲ	-pˠ
Past	-t	-tʲ	-q
Future	-l	-ɬ	-ɫ

Cardinal numbers

Other than full numbers as independent words, numbers can be expressed by appending a suffix to nouns.

As in Classical Gallifreyan, the counting system is in base six. In order to get more numbers the suffixes can be compounded, with the possibility of vowel fusion, both between numbers and with the preceding vowels. Compounding of numerals can theoretically be infinite, but rarely goes beyond two suffixes for word.

When more suffixes are appended to a noun, such as a possessive, the numeral always come last.

The numerals have both a normally used short form constituted by a vowel, and a longer form that can be optionally used after a vowel. Here, this is listed as the last, after the orthography.

• 1: -e, <o:e>, -we
• 2: -aɛ, <ae>, -ʕaɛ
• 3: -ə, <oe>, -pˠe
• 4: -è̤, <u2he>, -wè̤
• 5: -aɛ̤, <ahe>, -ʕaɛ̤
• 6: -e:, <w4e>, -jaɛ
• 36: -ə̀, <'a:e>, -pˠè
• 216: -ḛ:, <e'e>, -ʕḛ:
• 1296: -aɛ̰, <a'e>, -ʕaɛ̰
• 8176: -e̤:, <ehe>, -ʕe̤:

These suffixes can also be appended to verbs with the same rules, to convey the concept of "X times", the only difference being that all vowels are always long; a sequence <nn> is appended after the suffix in the orthography.

For a few speakers numerals trigger a clear mutation, but for most none; with verbs, triggering of a clear mutation is more common.

Qualifying prefixes

The most common qualifying prefixes are:

• /y-/ <i:p->, "this";
• /ʌ-/ <op->, "that";
• /e-/ <ep->, "all".

All of those insert an epenthetic /p/ if the word begins in a vowel.

As a rule, all nouns receiving a qualifying prefix become undeclinable, with the genitive being the only used form; case is not even indicated by mutations. However, some speakers may ignore this rule and fully decline nouns as usual.

When a noun gets a linker prefix, it may either go before or after the qualifying prefix; in the former case it gets the form commanded by the prefix (respectively central, back and front), while in the latter it keeps the form it would have without the qualifying prefix.

Irregular nouns

Five nouns are undeclinable, with both no time and case marking, usually trigger no mutations of their own, being also written without a final consonant, and never take numerals or qualifying prefixes. Also, if they take a possessive suffix, this can only be in short form; if the short form is not phonotactically applicable, neither is the suffix at all. Those are:

• wḭ, Gallifrey;
• a:, time;
• jɪ, Universe;
• a̤:, happiness;
• je, sadness.

Prepositions

Late Gallifreyan, as opposed to Classical Gallifreyan, which widely made use of morphology to link the different words in a sentence, boasts a wide array of prepositions with varied origins. All prepositions take a specific case when coupled with a noun; on the other hand, when coupled with verbs, they always rule a subjunctive. Also, all prepositions cause a mutation.

Bare prepositions (uninflected) usually receive full stress, but may become proclitics in fast or careless speech (which affects consonantal reduction).

Prepositions never carry linker prefixes; these are only appended to the nouns.

The most important prepositions are shown in the following table:

Orthography of the preposition	Pronunciation	Meaning	Case ruled	Mutation triggered
afp	a̤	for X; to make X happy (now)	Instrumental	Dark
azp	a̤:	for X; to make X happy in the future	Instrumental	Dark
bef	pe̤	disadvantaging X	Accusative	Dark
def	ɬe̤	disadvantaging X	Accusative	Dark
Xe1	é	linked to X, caused by X, by definition caused by X	Nominative	Throaty
pe1	pé	that is being caused by X	Nominative	Throaty
Te1	té	that has been caused by X, that has come from X	Nominative	Throaty
pi3nn	pjá:	inside X	Instrumental	Clear
pa:d	pɒ	under X, below X	Genitive	Clear
Ta:d	kɒ	under where X was	Genitive	Clear
pa2	pə̀	with X, that is also shared by X	Vocative	Throaty
Ta2	kə̀	that had included X, that was also shared by X	Vocative	Throaty
da2	lə̀	that will include X, that will also be shared by X	Vocative	Throaty
du2ff	ɫò	toward X	Accusative	Dark
pa1	pə́	dressed in X	Instrumental	Throaty
ofd	ʌ̤	between X	Accusative	Clear
To	qʌ	sent by X, from X	Nominative	Throaty
pi:	py	thinking about X, about X, regarding X	Ablative	Throaty
ufd	ʌ̤	outside of X, out of X (this preposition must always come after the subject)	Genitive	Clear
pu	pʌ̰	related to X	Accusative	Throaty
fu	fʌ̤	like X, similar to X	Accusative	Throaty
qo:p	o̰	(marks the direct object; often used with verbs)	Genitive	Dark

Prepositional inflection

Prepositions can be inflected in Late Gallifreyan, uniting them with a personal pronoun (so that we get prepositions in the first person, second, and so forth).

Most of those are simply a neat combination of the preposition and the pronoun in the appropriate case; this means that beside the person, tense is also signalled within a preposition.

Only four prepositions have irregular forms, and do not infect for tense:

	ɫò	pja:	ʌ (ufd)	pʌ̰
1	ɫwɒ	pja:	wa	pwɒ̰
2	ɫwy	pja:i	wi	pwy̰
3	ɫwʊɔ	pjɜ:ʌ	wʊʌ	pwʊɔ̰
4	ɫwɔ	pjɜ:ʌ	wʌ	pwɔ̰

The first and the fourth trigger a dark mutation, the second and the third a clear mutation.

Irregular prepositions

Two prepositions exhibit specific irregularities:

• ɫò fuses as a prefix ɫ- <d-> before the words "planet" and "home";
• pjá: loses its lengthening, becoming pjá, before the words "home", "part", "life". Its orthography is not changed.

Pronouns

Late Gallifreyan has 4 pronouns with a full declension: first person, second person, third person and impersonal.

	1	2	3	4
Accusative	pɒ	py	pʊɔ	po
Genitive	pa	pi	pʊʌ	pʌ
Instrumental	pa:	pi:	pʊ:ʌ	pʌ:
Nominative	pa̰	pḭ	pʊʌ̰	pʌ̰
Vocative	pa̤	pi̤	pʊʌ̤	pʌ̤
Ablative	pɒ:	py:	pʊ:ɔ	po:

These can be inflected for tense by substituting the consonant:

Present: always /p/	1	2	3	4
Past	t	t	q	q
Future	ɬ	ɬ	ɫ	ɫ

The nominative, accusative and genitive forms are preferably expressed by suffixes on the affected word; these full forms usually signal emphasis (by virtue of carrying stress).

Forms in the oblique cases can also be appended to the verb as suffixes - which will obviously affect the stress.

Linking prefixes

Down from the eight of Classical Gallifreyan, Late Gallifreyan has four or five prefixes, depending on how they are counted.

• /L-/, "and": behaving as an archiphoneme, it links two nouns or two verbs, and usually also expressing the concept of "also". Contrarily to Classical Gallifreyan, it can also be prefixed to verbs.
• /θ-/, "or": behaving as an archiphoneme as well, it serves as a disjunctive, and can be applied to nouns and to verbs.
• /p-/: it means "especially" when attached to nouns, and "must, have to" when attached to verbs (fusion of the Classical prefixes /p-/ and /b-/).
• /f-/: negates a noun when prefixed.
• /j-/: negates a verb when prefixed.

As opposed to Classical Gallifreyan, no specific rules determine the epenthetic vowel when the prefixes are affixed to a word beginning in a consonant other than an approximant; only /ə/ is used (and /i/ for a few speakers).

Verbs

Time-plannedness-timeline marking

Tense on verbs mimicks completely the marking on nouns, using the same infixes and the same orthography. Only two differences occur:

• What is "spatial marking" in nouns (i.e. a fricative infix) acts an actualness marker in verbs; this means that while stop infixes mark the action as occurring in the original birth timeline of the speaker, a fricative infix implies a time travel.
• In the past and present tense, the vowel before the infix can be lengthened to signal plannedness - the action described was planned or predetermined in some way. The orthography of this is more complicated, as it can either be marked as a <D> before the infix itself or by changing the letter to the grapheme of the voiced version of the infix (so that /p/ is written <b>; <θ> is changed to <n>).

Mood marking

Similarly to case in nouns, mood in verbs is marked by tweaking a root vowel, normally the antepenult. As much as five moods can be distinguished (still down from the nine moods of classical gallifreyan):

• Indicative: this mood marks the main clause, and usually implies lengthening of the vowel; it is also sometimes used as a coordinative, particularly with instrumental meaning ("by"+"-ing" form in English). The letter is <n>.
• Coordinative: connects as on-par a sentence to any other clause. It is marked by adding creaky voice to the vowel. The letter is <g>.
• Subject: creates a clause acting as the subject of another verb. Its form is always identical to the coordinative. The letter is <q>.
• Object: ditto, creates a clause acting as the object of another verb. It is marked by rounding the vowel in the present tense, but is identical to the subjunctive in the past and the future. The letter is <p>.
• Subjunctive: has a host of functions; it is the mood used for verbs after a preposition, while when bare, it can work as a generic subordinator; also, it can mark a relative clause when positioned after the antecedent noun. It is marked by leaving the vowel as it is - i.e. zero marking. The letter is <s>.

In practice, the usual system is simpler. For example, the coordinative is frequently replaced by an indicative/subjunctive with a prefix (see the prefixes section), depending on what the clause refers to. The subjective is often replaced by a bare subjunctive, and the objective again by a subjunctive with a preposition. This means some speakers may only contrast an indicative and a subjunctive.

Contrarily to nouns, there is never phonemic merger of any vowel feature: if the vowel is long on its own indicative and subjunctive merge, and if the vowel has creaky voice the coordinative/subjective merges with the subjunctive, and if the vowel is rounded the objective merges with the subjunctive. This means the five moods of some verbs may all have identical forms.

The epenthetic archiphoneme for three-vowel and above roots is /L/ for the indicative, the objective and the subjunctive, while the coordinative and the subjective usually display no epenthesis.

In Late Gallifreyan, the subject and the object can be encoded into a specific affix, positioned directly after the last root vowel.

The affix can encode either only the subject or the object or both. Four persons are distinguished: first, second, third and impersonal (with no plural, just like in nouns).

All the possible affixes use the consonant /p/, which can be changed to /f/ to imply the subject (or the object, if only this one is encoded) is to be understood as spacial.

Subject, object	(not encoded)	1	2	3	Impersonal
(not encoded)		-pɒ	-pø	-pʊɔ̀	-pɔ
1	-pa̤	-pa:	-pai	-pɜʌ̀	-pɜʌ
2	-pe̤	-pja	-pi:	-pjʌ̀	-pjʌ
3	-pʊʌ̤̀	-pwa	-pwi	-pʌ̀:	-pwʌ
Impersonal	-pʌ̤	-pwa	-pwi	-pʌ̀:	-pwʌ

Obviously, as some speakers do not distinguish tone in pure diphthongs, those will pronounce -pɜʌ with a low tone.

The orthography of the suffixes is the following:

Subject, object	(not encoded)	1	2	3	Impersonal
(not encoded)		<perp>	<pep>	<pu4p>	<pop>
1	<perx>	<perxerp>	<perxep>	<perxu4p>	<perxop>
2	<pex>	<pexerp>	<pexep>	<pexu4p>	<pexop>
3	<pu4x>	<pu4xerp>	<pu4xep>	<pu4xu4p>	<pu4xop>
Impersonal	<pox>	<poxerp>	<poxep>	<poxu4p>	<poxop>

A particular complication arises from how the evidentiality suffix may be fused with the above affixes when both a 1st or 3rd person subject and an object are included (thus the suffixes above are assumed to imply reportative evidentiality). They map as follow:

	1st			2nd			3rd			Imp
	Visual	Nonvisual	Inferential	V	N	I	V	N	I	V	N	Inf.
1st subject	pɒ:	pja:	la:, ka:	pay	pjai	lai, kai	paɔ̀	pjaʌ̀	lɜʌ̀, kɜʌ̀	paɔ	pjaʌ	laʌ, kaʌ
3rd subject	pwɒ	pɥa	lwa, kwa	pwy	pɥi	lwi, kwi	pɔ̀:	pjʌ̀:	lʌ̀:, kʌ̀:	pwɔ	pɥʌ	lwʌ, kwʌ

The orthography matches the one of bare pronouns except for three differences:

• The visual is marked by rounding of the second vowel of the affix, with <:>;
• The nonvisual is marked by insertion of <i> (or <i4> for some speakers) before the second vowel;
• The inferential is marked by changing the <p> with <d> or <T>.

Obviously, the inferential suffixes do not have the option of marking spatiality of the subject (a few speakers may, by analogy, turn the /k/ into /x/, but this is relatively uncommon).

Evidentiality

Gallifreyan verbs are marked for evidentiality, distinguishing four types of evidence:

• Visual sensory, marked by -pø̤̄, <pe:g>;
• Nonvisual sensory, marked by paì̤, <pi4g>;
• Reportative, which is unmarked;
• Inferential, which is marked by laí̤ <di1g> for past-tense verbs and by kaí̤ <di1g> for non-past verbs.

These suffixes, barring any numeral suffix, are always the last to be appended on a verb, coming in the very final position.

Although the suffixes are fairly stable, unless vowel fusion happens with a following numeral, evidentiality inflection is further complicated when personal suffixes are added to a verb; see the dedicated section for more.

Noun incorporation

Late Gallifreyan uses way more extensive noun incorporation than Classical Gallifreyan. This process fuses a verb and another word in a single word, normally indicating that this second word is the object, the instrument or the result.

In order to fuse them, a new vowel root is created: the vowels of the main verb come first, while those of the other word come last. The necessary infixes are then inserted following the template a normal root would use.

One-vowel roots may no longer exist in Late Gallifreyan, but those that originally were (and now have either a <e-> prefix or a <-e:1> suffix) may return to their original form when undergoing incorporation.

Obviously, the archiphonemes in the affixes follow the vowels of the new root, not those of the original bare verb.

Questions and imperatives

Questions in Classical Gallifreyan were expressed by a preverbal particle <i>; in Late Gallifreyan these become the prefixes:

• /iʕ-/ <i-> in the positive;
• /ij-/ <ie-> in the negative.

Irregular verbs

The only irregular verb is the verb "to be": it does not inflect for plannedness, and is the only verb to have only one verb, and may sometimes behave like a clitic. Additionally, it is only conjugated in the indicative (some speakers have a subjunctive obtained by shortening of the vowel).

	Birth present	Actual present/past	Birth past	Future
Indicative	pɒ:	xɒ:	kɒ:	lɒ:

Emotioner

In order to express emotion in a statement, a special root is used with different consonants for any feeling, and it is always at the end of the sentence when present; contrarily to Classical Gallifreyan, it is not mandatory, but still frequently used.

• /ḛkə/ <jrtirt> or /kə/ <tirt>, no emotion;
• /ḛ:lə̰/ <jrdirk> or /lə̰/ <dirk>, happiness;
• /jə/ <jrqirp>, sadness;
• /jə̰/ <jrqirkk>, pain;
• /ḛpə̰/ <jrpirk> or /pə̰/ <pirk>, anger;
• /jə̀/ <jrkkirp>, worry;
• /jə̰̀/ <jrkkirk>, fear;
• /ḛ:lə/ <jrdirp>, satisfaction;
• /ḛpə/ <jrpirp>, annoyance;
• /ḛkə:/ <jrtird>, indifference;
• /ḛ:pə̰/ <jrbbirk>, disgust;
• /ḛ:pə/ <jrbbirp>, disapproval;
• /ḛ:lə:/ <jrdirb>, joy, commotion;
• /jə:/ <jrqirb>, compassion.

Derivational affixes

Derivational affixes expand a root by being suffixed; the consonants are reshuffled as usual. Here is a complete list; those markedwith a star * trigger the throaty mutation.

• /-e/* <-j>, deverbal agentive noun
• /-ʌ/* <-u>, unvolunary agent (noun)
• /-e/* <-e>, possessor (noun)
• /-ʌ/* <-w>, non-human agent
• /-ə/ <-as>, emotionally involved agent
• /-ə/* <-'w>, conscious agent
• /-ḛ/ <-eq>, collective noun
• /-ɒ/ <-a:p>, habitual action
• /-o/* <-u:>, place
• /-ə/* <-a>, result
• /-é/* <-e1>, cause
• /-ì/* <-i2>, tendency
• /-ʌ̀/* <-o2>, generic verb
• /-ʌ́/* <-o1>, to talk in some way
• /-ə/* <-ir>, to talk about something
• /-ʊʌ̀/* <-u4>, to go somewhere
• /-i/* <-i>, to take
• /-ø/* <-e:>, to look at
• /-ə̰/ <-ag>, to put
• /-á:/* <-a3>, to work on
• /-aì/* <-i4>, to make, to turn
• /-a/* <-er>, small object
• /-a/* <-or>, positive thing
• /-wɜ́/* <-o3>, flat object
• /-ə:/ <-ad>, big object
• /-i:/, <-im>, general object
• /-ʌ/, <-us>, instrument
• /-ʌ:/, <-un>, piece of clothing
• /-i/* <-i>, building
• /-i/* <-i>, to ask to do
• /-ʌ:/ <-uD>, to repeatedly do
• /-ǿ/* <-e:1>, to do, to do in some way
• /-ə/* <-a>, to do violently
• /-é/* <-e1>, to cause to do
• /-ɜʌ̀/* <-o4>, to weakly do

Syntax